Had a flat a few days ago. Have tires coming in a few days.

i put the spare on the front where I had the flat, but the lugs keep loosing and passers by keep telling me that my spare tire is wobbling and looks like it's gonna fall off.
Anyone know why this could be happening. I tightened the lugs down to 100lbs and yet they keep coming loose.

 

^^ If you tighten the lugs while the wheel is weighted (i.e., your wheel is not suspended), you won’t get accurate torque values. That is especially true when tightening lugs on your spare since it has a smaller overall diameter than your stock wheels/tires.

Usually this isn’t an issue with the spare since you have the car jacked to replace the flat and install the spare. After installing the spare, you drive a short distance to a tire shop where you repair/replace the damaged tire and reinstall this on your car.

Your situation is different. In your case you are driving longer on the spare longer than recommended since you are waiting for delivery of your new tire(s).

You had a flat, jacked the car and replaced the flat with your spare. Of course there was no way for you to properly torque the lugs when installing the spare, so the lugs loosened. You noticed (or someone pointed out) that the lugs were loosening so you tightened the lugs, but did so while the wheels were weighted (the car was “grounded” while tightening the lugs). In that scenario you cannot get an accurate torque value, and probably never got the lugs to the correct torque. That is why the spare wheel/tire began to wobble.

--Spike

 

Preciate the info Spike. I just have a couple more days til the tires get here.

 

Here's another possibility - you didn't have the OEM wheels on the car so the chances are pretty good that you were also using aftermarket lugnuts.

While the OEM wheel is pretty thick, the spare is relatively thin. The aftermarket lug nuts may not have been deep enough and when you put them on the studs, they bottomed out. They were tight but only because the stud hit bottom. If they didn't truly snug down on the wheel, that could explain why it was or became loose after driving.

You might need to keep 5 OEM lugnuts in the car with the spare just for this occasion.

 

Here’s another way to keep the lugs tight while waiting for your new tires (I’ve done this when running with an off-road vehicle and had to install and maintain a smaller diameter wheel/tire after going flat, and when jacking the vehicle wasn’t a viable option).

Note: If Dave’s theory (lug nuts bottoming out before they can tighten the wheel to the axle) is the case, this suggestion won’t work and should be disregarded.

Park your car, and then use your torque wrench to tighten the uppermost lug, then roll the car forward slightly bringing the next lug into the uppermost position, and then tighten that lug, and repeat for the remaining lugs. That should “hold you” until you get the new tires.

Of course, suspending the wheel and tightening/torque all the lugs is better, but jacking up the car is a lot of work.

--Spike